Friday, March 29, 2013

Never Be Another Bad Day.

The week started out with the market on what seemed to be a never ending down hill slide. Most prognosticators had the opinion that no relief would come until the corn crop was all but assured to be a bumper one. However, salvation arrived after most of the week’s feeder cattle
marketing had taken place with Thursday’s banner day for cattlemen. The
festivities started out with the USDA grain stocks and prospective plantings
report that stated corn farmers intend to plant 97.28 million acres, which would
be the largest corn planting since 1936 when much of the work was done by mules.
Corn stocks were also above expectations at 5.4 billion bushels which ensures
that we won’t run out of yellow kernels before the new crop gets here. The news
forced CBOT corn futures down the 40 cent limit which sent the CME feeder cattle
contracts up the 3.00 limit as far as the eye could see. At the same time,
packers were paying 2.00-4.00 more for finished cattle from 127.00-129.00 live
and 204.00-205.00 dressed which was 6.00-7.00 higher. March 28th
is when the feeder and stocker cattle market found a bottom with a springboard
to bring demand and attitudes out from under the cloud that has plagued them
since right after the first of the year. Just a day earlier, it seemed there
was no relief in sight from high feedcosts and the late spring might cause more
farmers to plant soybeans. Now, severely dwindling calf and yearling supplies
are armed with the arrival of spring and its warmers days, greener pastures, and
the annual lighting of the backyard grill. The glimmer of hope for at least
some relief in feedcosts is slim but nearby corn contracts fell below 7.00/bu
for the first time in over a month and Good Friday’s closing prevented moods
from changing until next week.